


Antehero

by Basingstoke



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Character of Color, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-21
Updated: 2005-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke





	Antehero

"Can you help me sit up?" Gunn asked.

He'd always hated--_hated_\--asking people for help with things he should be able to do his own damn self, but dude had helped him pee. Wasn't much point in having pride with a dude who'd helped you pee.

"Of course," Giles said. He slid his arm under Gunn's shoulders and put a pillow behind his back.

Gunn sighed with the exertion and closed his eyes for a second. "Please tell me I'm getting better."

"Oh yes. Right as rain in a few weeks."

"Weeks."

"Think of the handsome young women eager to wait on you hand and foot," Giles said, and Gunn tried out a smile, which hurt. Yeah, the place was crawling with girls. He was in the headquarters of the Slayer Army, Cleveland Branch.

Giles sat on the edge of the bed and started to unwrap the bandages on Gunn's arm. "Does your skin still hurt?"

"Yeah," Gunn said.

"That's the histamine reaction."

"I'm allergic to demon," Gunn said. He laughed a little. "Good to know."

"Would you mind terribly if I had Robin in here to look at these wounds? They're distinctive, and I'd like to be sure he knows the difference."

"Sure. I don't mind."

Angel and Spike drove him in shifts around the clock to get here after he collapsed. The down side of being human... in the end, you weren't much in a fight.

Not much at all.

Giles left and returned with a black guy with a bald head and a goatee. Gunn nodded and the guy nodded back: Hi there, how you doing, we've got something in common.

"Robin Wood, Charles Gunn. He worked with Angel in Los Angeles for some years."

Gunn closed his eyes. "Be specific. Worked for Wolfram and Hart with Angel, got evil, trying to get over it."

"We all get lost sometimes in this job," Wood said. "I won't hold it against you."

Giles sat down on the bed again. "I hold it against you. You all must have been mad." But his hands were still gentle when he picked up Gunn's strengthless arm and peeled back the bandages.

"Maybe," Gunn said.

"It's the color that's most distinctive at this point, as you see," Giles said.

Yeah, that was an understatement. The wound marks were bright purply-pink like one of Cordelia's summer dresses. They stood out neon against his skin. "Holy Moses," Wood said.

"What you need to note, however, is the shape. The Y shape at the initial point of entry, which comes from the shape of the claws," Giles said, pointing.

"Oh--yeah, yeah. I see."

"It's vitally important to begin treatment as soon as possible. As you can see, the poison is quite toxic."

Gunn snorted softly. "I love that British understatement thing you have going on. Wesley did that too..." And then he was so depressed he wanted to cry all over the god damn bed.

But he didn't.

Giles didn't like Wesley one little bit. Wesley had mentioned that a couple of times, trying to be all cool about it and failing--kind of the same way he talked about his dad, but minus the stairs. Wood didn't know Wesley. He started to cry, it would just be him crying.

"Thanks," Wood said, "I'll definitely recognize those if I see them again."

"Are these going to scar up?" Gunn asked. He hadn't even been thinking about what happened next.

"Yes, rather dramatically, I should think."

"Damn."

"Chicks dig scars," Wood said.

"Little Harrison Ford chin scars, yeah. Big-ass demon scars make me look like a damn zebra, no." And he was--dammit, furious--mad as hell, and he had to just stop, because he was going to pass out. His vision swam. He blinked hard.

"Can you bring us some Gatorade?" Giles asked.

"Sure," Wood said, and he left the room.

Giles rebandaged him. Gunn listened to the roaring in his ears swell and then fade. Wood brought the Gatorade and left them alone again.

Giles put a straw in the glass and held it to Gunn's mouth. "The Watcher community was quite small even before the recent disaster," he said as Gunn drank. "I've known the Wyndam-Pryces all my life. In fact, I spent one irritating Christmas dinner when I was fifteen at the children's table with young Wesley and his cousin Lucy, who was an infant at the time. I fed the baby while Wesley lectured me on the uses of various household herbs, all of which I already knew, of course."

Gunn smiled a little. "Wind him up, listen to him go."

"Quite." Giles swirled the glass, looking at nothing in particular. "His father was the one who sent me to America. Punishment, you see."

"What did you do?" Wesley hadn't mentioned that part.

"I consorted with the forces of darkness and someone died."

"Oh," Gunn said. Hi there, how you doing? We've got something in common.

"I feel someone should always hold that against you, don't you?" He looked down at Gunn and his mouth was set in a line; that was pain, straight-up pain.

"Yeah, I do," Gunn said. There was an icy blue face in front of his eyes. He really wondered what was sitting there in front of Giles.

Giles offered him the Gatorade again. "I regret that I didn't not have the opportunity--or allow myself, I suppose--to meet the man that Wesley became. I understand he died a hero."

"Yeah," Gunn said, "he did," and then he could let a few tears go.

THE END.

 

All comments are welcome.


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